my mind has been in random overdrive lately:

Q: if charlie tuna had a band, what genre would it be?
A: alba-core.

the next time someone starts telling me how great the atkins diet is, I'm going to respond with, "well, personally I'm a big fan of the edgar atkins teagarden diet. alllllll watermelon!" if the person actually knows what I'm talking about, I'm proposing marriage right there (sorry josh, you're disqualified; I'm already aware you're in the know on this one).

I realized tonight that time travel will never be discovered. if that was destined to happen, no high profile war/assassination/atrocity would have occurred. ever. at some point some enterprising person would zip back in history to stop them all. yeah, I know that's paradoxical, but everything about time travel is anyway.

okay, so I found my stepmother is an alien in the $5.50 dvd bin at wal-mart, which pleased me to no end. I remembered that alyson hannigan plays dan aykroyd's daughter, but forgot who plays her date. seth green. fellow buffy fans, isn't that the most twilight zone-esque thing ever? it's willow and oz, age 13.

since I haven't mentioned him in a bit, let me take this opportunity to say that justin is still the greatest. weekend + sexy, funny, sweet, intelligent guy = happy me.

it's 9 am. why am I awake? must remedy that posthaste.

random blurbs:

the september issue of GQ has so many pictures of iman in it. I like that.

how often do you wonder what would happen if you stopped worrying about everyone, everything, and the future in general and just went for broke? personally, I try for 5-6 times per day. it's like window shopping at neiman marcus when you're on a big lots budget. frustrating, but such pretty possibilities...

white chocolate kit kats rule.

angelica huston is the greatest living film actress. no contest.

the frigid breeze tonight means fall is definitely coming up, and fast. I've always professed a dislike for autumn--especially in the piedmont, where the leaves just turn brown for a day and fall off--but somehow it seems to be the season when I'm most in tune with myself. maybe I'll crank out some good prose before the first snowfall. I should designate a lucky writing sweater before october rolls around.

I think too much.

just a quick note to the folks at the north carolina d.o.t.:

I'm pleased that work is being done to improve the area around the new 85/business 85 interchange; I'm sure that pretty much every triad resident is. also, I realize that late at night is the most efficient time to get that work accomplished.

however, the madness must stop. lane closures with little warning, hastily constructed abrupt merging lanes, and being guided down exits THAT ARE COMPLETELY BLOCKED WITH CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT that forces drivers to swerve back onto the interstate and take the next turnoff. uncalled for. it's all fun and games until someone loses a fender.

just needed to vent.

stupid bi-lo can eat it. I was all set to buy some serious groceries tonight and they had to close the store because their computers were down. at least that's what they said--I'm sure it's all part of the big conspiracy. anyway, hit steak n shake instead. I'm going to get so freakin fat.

had a great conversation with nadine tonight about polyamorous relationships. what is it with my fascination with that topic? as a psych guy, I can say it's one of three things: need for affection, commitment phobia, or being raised in a rather non-traditional household. as a psych guy who also happens to be me, I can say it's probably all three.

bought a new refrigerator magnet on e-bay; it has a 1965 buick wildcat on it. the things I spend my money on.

call from carra today--carra, if you're reading this, I WILL call you this week! and I'm serious about coming to richmond to visit. a little change of scenery is always nice, and the woodham ladies sure know how to show a fella a good time, iffn you know whatta mean.

the franz show kicked asssssss. there were two opening bands, the futureheads and the delays. the former not anything special--sort of a poor man's franz ferdinand, really--but the latter purveyed some very nice synth pop sounds; I'd like to get their record. and f.f. was amazing as expected.

after the show it was me, josh, charlie, hannah, and michael at a bar in chapel hill. great bar, but I will never again drink four vodka martinis in one evening. never. no embarassing puking scenes or anything, but some scary drifting in and out of consciousness that I don't want to repeat.

so justin said tonight that he wants to be "exclusive." so I sez to him, "if that's what you want." meanwhile, I was thinking, "SCORE!" I mean, he's not my ideal or anything, but he requires a lot less compromise than most guys. definitely exclusive material.

now that I'm seeing someone and have more friends in gso that I want to spend time with, I'm thinking about changing shifts at work and going in at 7:30 instead of 6:00. I'll get a little less overtime, but I think it would be a boon as far as social interaction goes. I mean, I could actually have dinner with people! during the week! wow!

of course I COULD transfer to a day shift position...and take at least a $10k per year pay cut. nope, not gonna happen. but I really should start thinking about the long term, I guess: what I want to do and what classes I could take to do it. I still love my job, but in addition to the hours grating on my nerves, there's very little possibility of moving up the corporate ladder from where I am now. hmm.

also speaking of work, I turned in a vacation day for next month to see rilo kiley. technically that day was unavailable, but I was wearing really cute shoes when I asked christy about it and I think that did the trick. yeah, I'm now the proud owner of a pair of doc martens saddle shoes. I'm so cool.

having just washed down twizzlers with sweet tea, I'm good to go for a while. time to do some energetic tv watching.

okay, so the interestingness seems good. there's this guy, see; his name's justin. he's pretty fantastic. our first date was only monday, but we've seen each other twice since then (stayed at his place last night, haw haw) and have averaged one phone call and two e-mails per day. I could get very serious about him, and he says he's getting that way about me. the "says" is in italics because I subscribe to the theory that all gay men--except for myself--are intrinsically evil. time will tell. I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground, but it ain't easy.

seeing franz ferdinand tonight! kick ass.

not a lot more going on...but it's enough. I'm out.

re my september first entry on life being boring: I must make a mental note to be careful what I wish for, lest I get it.

all I'm prepared to say right now is that life has become interesting. I'm not sure yet if that's good or bad. when I figure it out, I'll have some more to say.

things I learned about myself tonight:

it doesn't matter what I do to change my looks. it doesn't matter how much new information I take in, or what trends I follow, what my philosophy is or whether I have one at all. there will always be fundamental things about my way of thinking that I can't change. and they're always going to make my life difficult.

I'm sick of always being the one taking the picture and never being the one in it.

and I'm really, really fucking tired of sponging off other people's popularity. too bad it's all I know how to do.

sorry about the negativity. it's not that I hate life. I just hate mine.

I have too much time on my hands, so here's another one:


You are ALVY SINGER. You would never wanna belong
to any club that would have someone like you
for a member, and you're into garbage, that's
your thing.


Which Woody Allen are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

like most pop culture quizzes, the answers are obvious. but how could I not take it? and I was honest...


You are Angela Chase. You blend in to everything
and you're sick of it. You distance yourself
from the old ways in order to find your
"new" identity. You want to be
noticed, especially by a certain someone. Hey,
we all struggle during adolescence...


Which My So-Called Life character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I've always prided myself on my inability to bore easily. "I get restless," I've been known to say, "but not bored." and it's true that my quirky brain is pretty good at amusing itself when external stimuli fail.

however, in recent days I've started to believe that it's a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. I admit it. I'm bored. not on a momentary level, but bored with the whole shebang.

I'd do something about it if I could figure out why. contrary to popular belief, my job isn't boring. greensboro isn't boring; I enjoy tooling around it in my very not-boring roadster. my friends certainly aren't boring. in fact, with my recently burgeoning social existence you'd think I'd be much more interested in life these days. nope. bored.

is it because I'm single? well, here's where I fess up and say that I have once again been consulting the online personals services. I've had considerable luck getting cyber hit-on, and have done a bit of correspondence with potential dating candidates.

guys bore me too.

I could chalk it up to being intrinsically boring myself, although I've been assured (and by fairly interesting people) that that's not the case. I mean, not that they'd tell me otherwise, but still.

granted, life could suddenly get interesting. I could break my leg. 4109 could fall into a sinkhole. martians could land, resurrect the body of balboa, and have him claim luke wilson's nose for spain. these things would be bad, and boredom is certainly preferable to them.

still.

if you're still reading this, I'll bet you're bored. I'll write again when something interesting happens.

mmm hmm.

man, tonight was so weird.

there was a lady in a bridal gown impersonating a rockette. there was a man yelling out "DIRTY SANCHEZ!" there was a fella wearing corduroys and a feather boa (and little else).

I took a tour of a half-renovated house. I ate cheese fries. I got a random guy's phone number. I slipped and fell down the hill in front of my apartment.

you know, hanging out with hannah is proving to be very, very interesting.

God bless her.

another week grinds to a close with the usual lack of fanfare. although my attitude is much improved since last weekend. my brain shifts gears waaaay too fast for me to obsess about things. that can be a good or a bad thing, though.

mom's getting two kittens tomorrow, one for her and one for me! mine's named willow. hers is named fostina. seriously. they're both purebred himalayans. I'll have to make a trip home in a couple weeks to pick her up-- if I decide to bring her here. as much as I love cats and as independent as they are, they're still a responsibility. and stripped down though my life is, I sometimes have trouble handling the ones I've got.

I actually did some real writing tonight. for a while there I was afraid I'd forgotten how.

I'd like to encourage everyone to join the fight in flipping the electronic bird to internet explorer. get firefox. it's the bee's knees. no pop-ups, no crashes, just brutal and unadulterated web surfin. and the built in wikipedia search still hasn't ceased to delight me.

call from sarah love today! must go out with her and catch up on things.

no call from hannah. does that mean she hasn't done anything exciting to catch me up on, or that she's too busy doing the exciting things?

after many months of trying, I think I've finally convinced my co-workers that I'm bonkers. for no good reason I brought up tramp steamers, then laughed for several minutes about the sheer existence of the term "tramp steamer." everyone looked at me funny. except nadine, who was too busy laughing herself. our brains definitely have some overlap.

all recent drunkenness aside, the fact remains that there's still a lot of p.b.r. in the fridge and it's my duty to help drink it. I will savor a can while reading selected passages from the westing game before turning in for the evening.

the following is a post that I made early this morning. I was tempted to delete it--it's so self-indulgent and whatnot--but instead I'll do a line-by-line analysis. editor's notes in brackets:

josh's birthday was today. happy birthday, josh. [yes, it was indeed josh's birthday]

we had a party. [yes, that too. pretty good]

I got drunk. in fact, I'm still pretty drunk. [oh, yeah. drunk was the word. vodka martinis all night long. no embarrasing puking or anything, but moving around became quite an adventure]

some people came. including hannah and her almost-but-not-quite boyfriend. [actually, they'd just spoken online a few times before last night. his name's travis. she just randomly IMed him from here and invited him down to chill.]

I'm in love with hannah's almost-but-not-quite boyfriend. he's as close to perfect as anyone I've ever met. [okay, that's a little overstated. change "in love with" to "remakably infatuated with," or "sweet on" if you like. take out that whole perfect sentence...no, leave it but change "perfect" to "my ideal guy." sounds less insane that way.]

jeez. I'm going to be single for the rest of my life. [that can be left as is.]

my parents are coming in six hours. bed. [they did come, and I took them and Josh out to ruth's chris steak house. yum. I did not go to bed immediately following this, though; I hadn't spent quite enough time feeling sorry for myself yet. but I did find the bed before passing out, at least.]

[end post; begin today's ACTUAL post]

yeah, it was quite an evening, and one that I haven't quite had the chance to recover from yet. but I've yet to spend an evening with hannah that hasn't required extensive recuperation time, and I mean that as a compliment. although I must say, seeing her with that cute little number is mentally taxing. I once said that my personal hell (because I believe that heaven and hell are both subjective) would involve spending eternity in a studio apartment with a group of sexy guys that all have sex with each other but never with me. I take that back. same scenario, but with hannah and travis in place of the men! but don't spread it around--don't want to give satan any ideas in case I fuck up too much in this lifetime.

which brings up an excellent point. straight people seem to recognize most of the personal issues involved with being gay--being shunned by the hetero community, feeling pressured to fit into the gay community, stereotypes, health hazards, etcetera. but I don't think that many people realize the gravity of the greatest problem of all. with the exception of those bastards lucky enough to be happy in committed relationships, we spend our lives wanting people that we can never have. and it's hell.

I'm not talking about spoiled kids seeing forbidden puppies in pet store windows. I'm talking about, "there's an enormous piece of my life missing, and wow! that guy's shaped exactly like it!" but it won't work. it's not even that he doesn't want you, he just can't. so you have to keep looking. and you find some new pieces, sure. but none of them ever really fit. and you start to think that living with a gaping hole in your world isn't really that bad. but you end up going back to the square pegs, just like you always do.

too many times I've bragged that I don't let myself be defined through other people, that I don't need validation through affection. any you know what? I could have saved a lot of syllables and just said, "I'm not human." because we all do, and we all need. it's part of who we are, just like that funky part of us that makes us need specific shapes of puzzle pieces.

I can't believe I just typed all this crap after berating myself for being self-indulgent last night. but I'm not depressed, or even moderately melancholy. a little disappointed, and a little discouraged. not with the way I am or the way anyone else is, really, but at the general state of things.

stupid things. they get you every time.

a list of bests

best doctor's office reading ever: harmonizer, the official magazine of the barbershop harmony society. I don't know how it wound up in the waiting room of lebauer healthcare, but I'm glad that it did.

best create your own pasta combo at macaroni grill: bowtie pasta, garlic cream sauce, green onions, sundried tomatoes.

best lemonade based alcoholic beverage: venetian lemonade at the aforementioned establishment.

best thing to ever happen to me at jiffy lube: getting a free oil change because it took twenty (gasp!) whole minutes.

you know, today was a pretty good day.

ah! nothing like coming home from a hard night's work to...house cleaning. it's a little known fact that the man who originated the phrase "it's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it" was also a prognosticator. yep, he could see right into 2004-era 4109. however, it should noted that he couldn't see himself in anything here--floors, windows, mirrors...

life-affirming moment of the day: reading that phish just played their last show. ever.

I'm by no means an ageist, nor do I routinely make superficial judgements. that said, old fat guys need to not hit on me.

have put on no less than seven pounds. kit kats have become too much of a guiding force in my life. must stop the insanity. remember susan powter? most people seem to have forgotten her, poor thing.

the teenage and twenty-something guys of america really need to stop trying to look like johnny knoxville. there's a lot to be said for the man himself, but as a mainstream look it's gettin old.

why aren't there many songs written about ships anymore? I think it's a shame. come to think of it, trains don't get sung about much either these days. the world's songwriters need to start giving mass transportation props again.

someone needs to randomly give me $35,000. that's about the difference between what I can afford to spend on a place to live and the cost of one of the new lofts at smothers place downtown. grr. well, the planned purchase is still almost a year away. anything could happen.

recalling an excellent observation bryan and I made some years ago: any food that can't be improved by adding peanut butter can be improved with barbecue sauce. the two magic culinary liquids.

great visit with tiffany this weekend. just BARELY got her to raleigh on time for her plane; the continental desk people were none too nice about it, either. in fact, I've never seen anyone less suited to dealing with the public than the personnel at that airport--the security people were just as bad. if anyone reading this can avoid flying out of rdu, please do so. gso might be pricier to fly from, but you don't get treated like a second class citizen.

anyway, she's off to seattle. am I sorry I'm not going with her? no. I'd love to live with her in a spiffy city like that, but I'd just have to give up too much. for her it's a great idea; she's got nothing to keep her anywhere else. but I've made a life for myself here. I may bitch about it to no end, but it's comfortable and familiar. although there are certain aspects of my circumstances that I'd like to change, I thank God for the others every day. if that makes me stodgy and lacking in adventure, then maybe I am. or maybe I'm just all grown up.

bought a pocket watch today. just the thing for a weak-wristed typist who enjoys looking quirky yet fashionable.

at nadine's recommendation, I've been reading good omens by neil gaiman and terry pratchett. I don't know when I've been given a better book to read. hi-larious.

progress on furniture: have found very possible sofa and chair for very reasonable price. progress on car repair: none. the neon green paint remains. must call tomorrow for estimate.

I've got errands to run. given the BEST WEATHER EVER we've had lately, it's happy miata time.